Bristol ties for having the strongest economic health

Published on Wednesday, 13 September 2017 21:12 Written by Lorenzo Burgio

STAFF WRITER

BRISTOL - The city tied with Wallingford for the strongest economic health of the stateâ€™s 25 largest cities in 2016, according to numbers published this month by the state Department of Labor.

The Connecticut Town Economic Index is put together annually by the DOLâ€™s office of research. Bristolâ€™s ranking on the index is 128.2 for 2016.

Justin Malley, executive director of the Bristol Development Authority, said, â€śWeâ€™re excited when data like the CTEI ranking demonstrates that our economic development and marketing efforts are paying off. We have worked hard to establish Bristol as a welcoming environment for businesses and trust that the effort will help residents seeking employment. We are looking to continue our strong CTEI metrics and grow our economy.â€ť

The rankings are based on a broad measure of business and resident economic growth, which is split into four economic indicators - each given a weight of 25 percent within the total score, according to the DOL.

The first indicator is total business establishments, which includes all physical work locations in the city. The second is total number of employees at the establishments.

The third indicator is inflation-adjusted coverage wages that refers to the aggregated payroll divided by the total average employment, and the last is the local unemployment rate, which is recorded monthly by the DOL.

â€śWe are extremely pleased by the numbers and especially the upward trend over the past several years,â€ť said Mayor Ken Cockayne. â€śWhen we went through the credit rating reviews with the top credit rating agencies, they all told us they believed Bristol was in a really solid position economically, and this is more evidence that the work we have been putting in is really paying off.â€ť